Graham Henry: Why don't we just ban sports drugs cheats for life?

There are times when I get lost in a Wiki-hole and won’t be seen by the public for hours.

If you don’t know what a Wiki-hole is, you may be better off not knowing.

It’s when you go on to Wikipedia for one reason, before innocently clicking on a slightly related link. And then another. Then another. You end up, having gone on to look at the page for, let’s say, Sergio Aguero... ending up reading about the red panda.

One of those times was this week.

In a fit of enthusiasm for the European championships, I was eagerly gobbling up athletics news titbits.

There was a mention of Botswana’s 400m runner Amantle Montsho having failed a drugs test and it having been confirmed by a backup sample.

Naturally, I searched for her name on the internet and read all about it. I then went into an athletics Wiki-hole, and the true scale of the problem unfolded before me.

There’s a page on the site which has just a list of people who have failed doping tests. The sheer size of the list is terrifyingly large, contains scores of household names and nobodies.

There is, just from a cursory look at this extraordinary list of doping offenders, a huge problem in sport. And yet, from my reading, the rules have become laxer.

One athlete on the list I researched in my Wiki-hole was Dwain Chambers, still active in the 100m after serving his ban for doping after being caught up in the so-called “Balco” scandal that also caught up with several of the big names in American sprinting.

Interestingly, since his ban he appears to have become an ambassador against drug use in sport. Very admirable, but not an outcome that seems particularly common.

But one quote stuck out from his story, given in 2007 after he was banned: “It’s simple, science always moves faster than the testers.

“Some people take chances, some don’t, and I was willing to take that chance.”

Given Chambers was caught at a time when British athletes faced an automatic lifetime ban from the Olympics if caught doping, you’d think it would be the ultimate sign he was willing to break the rules and the spirit of the sport. Instead, he legally challenged the life ban and overturned it. British athletes who test positive for drugs can now return to the Olympics when they’ve served their (typically) two-year ban.

But given the slew of examples of people being caught having taken the risk, it suggests the lifetime ban from the Olympics - as an ultimate sanction - should perhaps make a comeback.

If the worst that can happen to you for a first-time offence is a two-year ban and the stigma - which can clearly be overcome, given Chambers’ experience and ascent back into the echelons of athletics, presenting a far less fearsome barrier.

Indeed, as I watched the European athletics, a Greek pole-vaulter appeared on the screen to successfully clear. With the quick addition of the commentator: “And of course, he served a two-year ban for doping. Which will live with him forever, I suppose.”

By that sentence alone, that’s clearly not enough. With the knowledge you can be rehabilitated and then just have it as a footnote on the rest of your career - with all the bounties on offer if you don’t get caught - sport risks glossing over a problem that is huge and threatens its very credibility.

Otherwise, why don’t we just have a Drug Games for the most effective roiders and be done with it?

* If Alex Salmond was looking for a boost pre-referendum, after a dire debate against Alistair Darling, he got it.

The intervention of Australian PM Tony Abbott to criticise a Yes was the perfect tonic for the under-fire Yes campaign. Given he’s a fairly obnoxious, sexist fool.

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